I watched a very good documentary on Television last evening featuring the career of Jean Simmons and this film cropped up – ‘Angel Face’ gave Jean Simmons one of her best roles

In Otto Preminger’s Angel Face, Robert Mitchum is an emergency medical technician, who responds to a call at a mansion high up a hill. There a wealthy woman (Barbara O’Neil) has almost asphyxiated from the gas in her unlit bedroom fireplace. Was it a suicide bid, or something more sinister? Her husband (Herbert Marshall), a burnt-out novelist she supports, can’t explain it. Neither can his daughter by a previous marriage (Jean Simmons).

Mitchum finds Simmons quite the dish, but she finds in him something more than a passing fancy. She jumps into her sleek sports car, follows the ambulance back down to the hospital and waylays Mitchum in a diner. Generous with his affections, Mitchum breaks a date with his steady girlfriend (Mona Freeman) in order to spend a perfectly `innocent’ evening of dining and dancing with Simmons.

But his medical experience hasn’t equipped him to deal with a dangerously scrambled psyche. Jean Simmons first invites Freeman to lunch so she can humiliate her by spilling all the details, cunningly tweaked up, of her `innocent’ rendezvous with Mitchum. Then she arranges for him to take on the job of family chauffeur, installing him in a garage apartment. And she persuades her stepmother to lend Mitchum the money to start up his own business as a car mechanic. Telling himself that he’s just looking out for Number One, Mitchum blithely lets her erase any boundaries between them.

The main players

Robert Mitchum – Frank Jessup
Jean Simmons – Diane Tremayne
Mona Freeman – Mary Wilton
Herbert Marshall – Charles Tremayne
Barbara O’Neil as Catherine Tremayne
Kenneth Tobey as Bill
Leon Ames as Fred Barrett

Film Trailer

Warning signs appear, however, when she pounds on his bedroom door in the middle of the night with a crazy story about O’Neil hovering over her bed and playing with gas again; the earlier incident, she claims, was just a smokescreen. She tells him, too, that the stepmother reneged on his loan – in order to get back at her. Robert Mitchum ‘s wariness enrages Simmons and redoubles her delusional obstinacy.

When her father and stepmother perish in a spectacular freak accident (their car plummeted in reverse down the steep ravine abutting the driveway), the heiress Simmons finds herself charged with murder. As does Mitchum – he had the expertise to sabotage the vehicle. Wily attorney Leon Ames (in a small but succulent part) sees the defendants’ marriage as the path to acquittal. Which leaves Mitchum with a Hobson’s choice – risking either the gas chamber or the psychotic wrath of a woman he never loved….

Though Preminger can deploy twists of plot with the best of them, he had a subtler knack of keeping his audience off-balance, never quite sure in which direction the story might develop. So for a while we share the perplexity of Mitchum, so laid back that he doesn’t grasp that he’s playing with a five-alarm blaze until it’s too late; opportunistic but lazy, he’s the perfect stooge.

Simmons may have been working within her limitations in her low-voltage, passive-aggressive performance, but she fits the character, who operates in a world inhabited only by herself. She’s not a duplicitous vixen scheming to get what she wants; what she wants is the only reality she knows. Preminger recognises this, and gives her one of the film’s quietest, most scary scenes: During one of Mitchum’s flights from her, she snoops as if sleepwalking through his rooms, finally curling up in his easy chair, his sport coat draped around her shoulders against the dawn chill. It’s an eerie calm before the final storm.

The film is ultimately a wicked study in obsession – the kind of obsession that has no boundaries – the kind of obsession between a man and a woman – the kind of obsession that is so self-serving. And, interestingly, it is largely one-sided – since Frank may enjoy the delights of Diane, but also knows deep down that she should be put back on the shelf. Diane’s obsession is so real that you do basically know that Mitchum’s Frank Jessup doesn’t really stand a chance.

Jean Simmons was a revelation here. She’s a good actress

.I would have not have thought that she could have played opposite Mitchum’s cool, relaxed persona and have made it work, but she did.

This film is dark to the extreme and is as fresh, as vital, and as pertinent as though it were made just yesterday.

Verdict

This picture is filled with high intensity. All coming from Jean Simmon’s magnificent performance. Each lingering shot of her face reveals another level of unhinged cracks.

Robert Mitchum is his usual cool self, wandering from one scene to another popping a cigarette into his mouth. Even though he has a lovely girlfriend waiting for him he seems so attracted to this un-hinged girl

Otto Preminger manages to fit a hell of a lot in. There’s even time for some court room drama.

.It is at times haunting, has a flash of the outlandish and that feeling, that we are heading down a doom-laden path? Thus is a must-see film

The first film ‘Cage of Gold’ with Jean Simmons, David Farrar and James Donald.

I do remember an article in one of the Film Annuals I have in my collection, written by a friend of David Farrar’s daughter, who spent a lot of time with the Farrar family when they lived in Dulwich. She recalls Mrs Farrar taking them to the cinema to see this film and the young girl says that she felt uncomfortable watching David Farrar in a love scene = presumably with Jean Simmons – but also that she looked across at Mrs Farrar who didn’t seem to be troubled by it at all.

I always liked James Donald for his style – he was first rate tending to under-play his characters and it was all the more impressive.

Jean Simmons by this time had returned from Fiji after filming ‘The Blue Lagoon’ there and would shortly go to Hollywood and become a major star. She would probably have married Stewart Granger by now

Good choice of films

The ABOVE feature a tribute to George V1 so this programme must be later in 1952.

I remember ‘Reluctant Heroes’ which had been a famous stage play at The Whitehall Theatre

This excellent film accurately reflects life as a National Serviceman in the 50’s and 60’s.

The film started life as one of run of Whitehall Theatre farces in London in which Brix Rix ( l;ater Lord Rix) and his wife Elspeth Grey starred. Wally Patch played the indomitable Sgt Bell on the stage and Brian Rix re-created the part of Gregory he had performed on stage.

Between 1952 and the late 1960s BBC Television broadcast some seventy live comedies and farces from the Whitehall Theatre in London.The series is the most sustained and successful partnership between a theatre company and a broadcaster, yet the productions were rarely discussed by journalists at the time and have been ignored by writers on television ever since. Recordings of only a handful survive, but there is extensive documentation of almost all of them in the BBC Written Archive Centre.

On 14 May 1952 BBC Television showed just the first act of Colin Morris‘ hit comedy Reluctant Heroes. Morris had begun writing his tale of army life during the war, when he served as a Major in the Eighth Army in North Africa and Italy. In 1949 Reluctant Heroes was presented by a repertory company in Bridlington, where it was seen by the young theatrical manager Brian Rix. Rix secured the rights and mounted a touring production that opened in March 1950 with himself and his wife Elspet Gray in the cast.  By the time it came to the Whitehall, where it opened on 12 September 1950, Morris too had joined the cast. The anonymous reviewer for The Times was resistant to the fourteen first-night curtain calls:.

Well, in the fifties we were treated to plenty of Westerns at our local cinemas and these below cover some of them – some well known, some not

First BELOW we have an unlikely pairing, I would have thought, although I really liked both of them.

Rio Bravo was a top rate Western.

‘The House on Haunted Hill’ ‘was filmed in Emergo where we saw, in one sequence, a skeleton ’emerge’ from the screen into the audience by way of a contraption fitted into each cinema with ropes and pulleys being used so that the skeleton hovered over the first few rows of the auditorium.

It was more laughable than scary.

Vincent Price was on great form in the film

BELOW – wo pretty well-known ones and you could well see these two as a good programme

BELOW – An Amaerican town – Sarasota – puts on the Western bonanza of films.

I can’t say I know any of these films – although there are some pretty well-known stars of the era – certainly Randolph Scott – to a lesser degree Sterling Hayden in ‘Top Gun’ and James Arness better known to TV viewers

Westerns

ABOVE – Randolph Scott again in one I do know ‘Seven Men from Now’

August 31, 2016igsjr

Gun the Man Down ABOVE

Gun the Man Down a“B-Western .  Not that it’s not a low-budget western (this film was shot in nine days)—the cast is relatively small, and the set (much of this was filmed at the Jack Ingram Ranch in Woodland Hills,

Gun the Man Down ABOVE

However ‘Girls in Prison’ and ‘Return to Treasure Island’ are certainly not Westerns but still look worth seeing

‘Girls in Prison’ and ‘Return to Treasure Island

Now back to August of 1949 -As he continued to take full advantage of English locations, Director Byron Haskin took his unit to a lime pit near Harefield, only about 4 miles from Denham.

Here he found the ideal location to film a sequence where Ben Gunn who had not seen another human being for 5 years jumped down and stood in front of a startled Jim Hawkins against the wall of the lime pit.

An old bomb hole proved perfect for the spot where the treasure was buried. Designer Tom Morahan had located this as a near perfect spot

In this picture we seen Director Byron Haskin looking over Robert Newton’s shoulder on this same scene.

Technicolor Stills from this location :-

Also BELOW scenes from earlier when the landing on the island was filmed in the dammed up River Colne in the grounds of Denham Film Studios

Treasure Island

ABOVE – Robert Newton listens intently to Byron Haskin’s instruction

ABOVE – A few yards away on another raft Byron Haskin lets Robert Newton know what he wants

These two respected one another – In fact they both chose to work together again with the later ‘Long John Silver’ film made in Australia in 1954. In fact both invested in the film which should have done much better.

Byron Haskin would stand no nonsense and when directing a film was ‘in charge’ – after ‘Treasure Island’ he directed Burt Lancaster and Joan Rice in ‘His Majesty O’Keefe’ – a film I really like – made in Fiji.

Burt Lancaster was something of a bully boy and had threatened Directors who he didn’t agree with – even when they knew more than he did.

He never threatened Byron Haskin

This photograph gives a much better view of the exotic Treasure Island with sandy beaches and palm trees.

Quite an impressive shot – and just shows the ingenuity of the Denham staff making the dammed lake at Denham into that mystical tropical island. Very impressive as is the colour.

Back to the filming schedule as reported on 10 August 1950

Sea shanties and ocean waves were the feature of this week’s filming when a break in the weather caused the unit to concentrate on interior shooting.

Excellent progress was made on the detailed settings which reproduced the Below- Deck Hispaniola. The sound of creaking timbers and the rise and fall of the distant horizon as provided by the unit’s new Horizon-graph helped provide a realistic background rousing singing of the pirate crew.

After the deluge might well described the set later in the week scenes of huge waves pouring through the foc’sle and companion way were filmed with the aid of a cunningly contrived water shute high up in the roof.

Equally deft was the manner in which the first mate Arrow played by David Davies is ‘lost’ at sea by Long John Silver. A plate of plum duff and free access to the rum bottle paves the way for his hasty exit from this life in the turbulent seas.

Walt Disney returned from the Continent on Saturday and is spending the week at the studio on finsl conference with producer Perce Pearce, his production executive Fred Leahy and Director Byron Haskin before sailing on August 13th for America and his Hollywood Studio.

Scenes BELOW = see above

Long John Silver feeds Mr Arrow and fills him full of rum before helping him climb the steps from below-deck as the water from the heavy seas poured into the Hispaniola

Mr Arrow – played by David Davies did not survive

With the temperature at Denham hovering close to the 90 dergree mark – this is at the very end of July – the luckiest actor on the Denham set was Walter Fitzgerald who plays Squire Trelawney.

He spent much of one of the hottest days of the year in the cool waters of the tropical lagoon which had been achieved at the back of Denham Studios by damming up the River Colne.

Director Byron Haskin was filming one of the final sequences of the story in which Long John Silver ( Robert Newton ) produces a hidden gun after his capture in one of the long boats and forces the Squire to jump overboard so that Long John can escape

Walter Fitzgerald didn’t take much persuading to make the required dive nor did it require much urging for the camera crew and the other technicians to don their bathing trunks to facilitate the handling of the camera equipment on the barge where it was situated.

Other sequences scheduled for this week, was for work on the Spyglass Inn in Bristol but my own view is that this was little used in the final film with studio sets at Denham being used

Visiting the set during this last week was Robert S Wolff Managing Director of RKO Radio. Afterwards producer Perce Pearce took him into the projection room to show ‘rushes’ from the first two weeks of filming and judging from the smiles on their faces afterwards, progress must have been satisfactory

Long John Silver is captured and then tuns the tables

A cool dip on a very hot day at Denham

I am posting these images that really show the exotic nature of Treasure Island – actually the Denham lake with ingenious additions

When I look again at this sequence, I am totally blown away with just how good it looks – that fabulous Technicolor has a lot to do with it. When I first saw this film as a small child with my Mother and Dad — I was almost trembling with excitement because there had been such a build up in terms of publicity that to actually see it on the big screen was like a dream come true – and it was even better than I could have imagined. The Colour was so impressive and so beautiful particularly on this scene

I look again at these pictures and see that exotic Treasure Island just as we had imagined it – but even better.

That summer apparently was particularly hot so the filming of exteriors was made much easier

Filming had begun at the end of June 1949 of Walt Disney’s ‘Treasure Island’ at Denham Film Studios with some location work in Devon and Cornwall

In fact for the scenes when the pirates landed on Treasure Island the actual grounds of Denham where it sloped down the the River Colne was used as this exotic island – and when seen on the Technicolor screen it looked perfect.

At the end of July 1949 during a very hot spell of weather the very clever craftsmen at Denham had dammed the RIver Colne, cleared the rushes away, hauled in sand and hung long, twisting vines from the trees.

Most startling of all was the introduction of a number of 40 ft high Palm Trees – artificial of course but realistic. This followed work on the removal of the rushes by the lakeside and then the importing of tonnes and tonnes of sand for the beach

Credit for this wonderful setting goes to the craftsmen who worked tirelessly on the project under the guidance of production designer Thomas Morahan

These were great memorable scenes

ABOVE =- We can see where the tonnes of sand had effectively utilised

What great fun – and hard work – it would have been to have been there during this week of filming

I have been away for much of January 2026, so this Blog has been somewhat neglected but I am now back and continuing with the very detailed reporting of this film’s production. More to come

I am sure many of us film fans receive such gifts at Christmas – and will welcome them as I did. This is a very detailed book with few pictures but plenty of detail.

I haven’t read that much of it yet but I did hone in on one particular chapter which was very interesting and told, with dates when some of the Major Studios sold the Television Rights So that we could eventually view them on our small screens

Looking around for film books specialising in the old films often you find that they are no more than re-hashes of things most of us fans have already known and seen.

Something like this is incredibly detailed and will I am sure throw up snippets we did not know – and so we will unearth another ‘jewel’ – at least I hope so

I should have posted this at Christmas of course